Radnorshire Bardic Poems, 46

This is a translation of the bard Llawdden's elergy to Elen Gethin, presumably he composed it for one of her daughters. The tomb which Elen had made for her and her husband can still be seen in Kington parish church. At the end of the poem Llawdden compares Elen to, amongst others, the Helena - mother of the Roman Emperor Constantine - who recovered the true cross from Jerusalem; the Seven Wise Sages of Rome, and the biblical Susanna.

Llawdden's Elergy for Elen Gethin

Since Monday, for me,
The planet is without light.
Monday the fair one was dark,
A day of weeping, Elen’s demise.
Snatched, like a saint’s ascension,
She was of no great age.
A blessed wife, faith’s vision,
Sought the temple of Tomas’s bed.
The fair one who brought his body home
From the pain of the battlefield of Banbury.
And now he, in Kington church,
Cannot sleep because of his Lady.
She was loved, she and her chieftain,
Let them find heaven from the bed she made.
A great white wall, made of marble,
Like the cloak of Mwrog and Mariaith.
The image of a man and his lover in the church,
In the clay before the Son of God.
A stone curtain, a white mantle
Closed for eternity.

A psalm for Elen Gethin, she shared wine,
I bring for her daughter.
The moon is faint to hold court
After Elen and her two courts.
Teams ploughed her lands,
A fair estate, she wasn’t poor.
Her hall never lacked wines for
The world, anymore than Bath.
There was no wall without light
With candlesticks about her corpse.
Gold and coral on her fingers,
Fair lass, to count the saints.
Pointless in her day to
Rebuke her kinsfolk,
She allowed no perjury
Or poverty amongst her people.

A good woman, with Susanna’s sense,
And wine and candles in her court.
A sister to that woman who fetched the Cross,
Until the end of her life,
Lear’s daughter before the goodmen,
Coel’s daughter, great hearted;
Fair Marsia, many mention
Her law and works of old.
Every word from her was strong,
Elen’s learning was expected.
Seven were next to her in speech,
The eighth, her learned tongue.
She was a Sybil, her language was good,
A second Solomon to her breast.
If David had two sons,
From her two sons will spring goodmen:
Master Watcyn, a pure and pleasant lad,
Is there any more powerful? Master Rhosier!
If holy Mary calls Tomas and Elen
To heaven on high,
We expect, God, without doubt,
A golden halo above their heads.

Radnorshire Bardic Poems, 3

This is another poem by Lewis Glyn Cothi, no doubt commissioned by Elen Gethin of Hergest for the funeral of her son Rhisiart, Lord of Bleddfa, who was killed in the aftermath of the battle of Banbury and who was buried, like his father, in St Mary's Church, Kington.


No 128 The Elegy of Rhisiart Fychan

A sermon to Elen Gethin,
All my life I’ve spoken my mind:
Think about God, Elen,
And Mary his gentle, holy mother;
Mary who witnessed the death
Of Jesus, her son and her redeemer.
Elen , too, has witnessed, for her sake,
The cruel death of her prince.
From the court she brought him to the church,
Oh God, such a burden, Rhisiart Fychan!

I am sad from studying
The sadness of his mother for him,
Elen has grieved for two lands,
All the fair court of Herast has grieved.
Herast, oh more’s the pity, is saddened,
It was a good place for feasting;
In two days Maelienydd became
Weak, now it is worse;
Cedewain has run to gorse,
Ceri has become a withered forest;
In a hundred lands no man is praised,
Montgomery is nothing but a battlefield;
Llinwent, which was the world’s pattern,
Llinwent is less than nothing now,
The storm ravages Llinwent in the wake
Of this nephew of Tristan of Gwent.

Master Rhisiart, a powerful treasure,
Hidden at the edge of the choir,
A secret curtain over yellow hair,
There is white marble on his hair:
It is not unpleasing to Elen’s gaze,
The sight of her son in his white helm.
She sees him next to his father’s bed,
Lying together in a single love,
Two angels from the same house
Have gone to two rented beds.
God for better, between two altars,
Has taken a champion and a great soldier,
And she went to God himself,
High on the wind, Mary of Kington.

When Tomas ap Rhosier went
To God and the saints through the stars,
He was wise, my blessing to him,
Wishing his son to follow him.
The wood of Moreiddig is a bare pasture
Since every branch was blown down;
Yet there shall grow once more,
From a single sprout, two thousand trees.
Although men are brought down like twigs,
Tall ashes will grow again at Herast.
Master Watcyn desires such a world,
Master Rhosier will also be counted.
What God gives from the root
Both God and Mary desire.
If Tomas and Rhisiart have been taken,
The one Holy God has brought them to his ward.
A praiseworthy father and son,
Mary and her father will help them,
On her throne, as a protector
Of father and son, the Virgin Mary.

Book of the Month

I'm really enjoying dipping into this book at the moment, another excellent offering from that marvellous Herefordshire publishing house Logaston Press. The book has been out for quite a while and I'm afraid I must have dismissed it as one of those fey works about Wales you sometimes get from English authors. Big Mistake. The book is solidly historical and it's 250 plus pages are full of interest and many facts about Radnorshire of which I was blissfully unaware.

A few minor quibbles, but just one for now. The author repeats the story of Elen Gethin of Hergest Court deliberately killing her cousin Sion Hir during an archery contest in Llanddewi Ystradenni churchyard. Like many an author before him Mr Palmer translates Gethin - not a surname of course - as meaning terrible. Now Elen was the subject of many bardic poems, all of which call her Gethin - something they would be unlikely to do if it meant terrible! No the sobriquet Gethin in names like this means olive-skinned, so Elen the olive-skinned, not Elen the terrible.

Radnorshire Bardic Poems, 45

Tomas ap Rhosier Fychan of Hergest was killed at the Battle of Banbury in 1469, this translation of an elegy by Lewis Glyn Cothi confirms how his wife Elen Gethin brought his body back home from the battlefield, the couples' tomb can still be seen in Kington parish church. The illustration shows Lewis Glyn Cothi's drawing of Tomas ap Rhosier's coat of arms, he belonged to the Wye valley tribe of Drymbenog, originating it seems from Cwrt Llechryd in the Radnorshire parish of Llanelwedd.






No. 124, Elegy for Tomas ap Rhosier Fychan of Hergest

The most powerful field in Christendom,
And through defection it was lost;
In Banbury vengeance was taken
Upon fair Wales, a heavy payment.
There, were heard in a single hour
The cries of battle between great spearmen:
Some "Herbert!" some "Our Edward!"
"The Earl of Warwick!" others "Harry!"
Under the banner of the lord of Herast
There was slashing and bruising and grappling;
Tomas between the two maddened ranks,
The son of Rhosier with the bruising spear,
An Arthur in his breastplate,
Killed before the host of Camlan,
And he, himself, and not lightly,
With both hands avenged them.
Tomas was killed like Jesus,
He was killed when at the head of his host.
Tomas, in his white breastplate,
More than repaid the enemy.
If he were fighting fist to fist with
The three most singularly privileged in Banbury,
He did what nine might do,
After the charge, in the hand to hand,
He was not had, where the others were killed
In single combat with a man and another,
And if he were, where there were two
In single combat, he had the best of it.

Loud the battle with our enemy
In cruel Banbury, atop a hill,
Two men went, neither was spared,
An earl of Gwent, another of Kington.
The grandson of Moreiddig
Had many virtues and few vices,
He never allowed, in his manor
Through his exertions, any great tax,
Mostly they were avoided,
And all of them were shared in wine.
A wonder for the books of knowledge,
No-one lives who blames him.

Elen Gethin has been weeping
Drips of dew in drops of rain,
And after the brave weeping
She brought the dead one back,
She has made this feast
In Herast for his funeral.
Afterwards there shall awaken,
Three like St George or St Derfel.
Three with the skill to avenge her,
The true God will give me payment.
Master Watcyn, son of a sweet shoot,
Master Rhisiart and Master Rhosier.
The intention of the threes sons of Constantine
to be strong and to topple oppression,
These now will avenge their father
Upon England before sleep enters the eye,
And they before summer ends
Will share a field taken form the strongest,
Upon two new days, as one,
That Mary's son may grant them.
In the spot where he was killed
God will joust for Tomas.
The image of Mary will avenge him,
God, too, may take vengeance.

Book Review

I'm almost resigned to the fact that any new book about Radnorshire is going to quote that old chestnut about Richard Fowler of Abbeycwmhir and his five hundred a year. Conradi's At the Bright Hem of God, Radnorshire Pastoral doesn't fail in this respect, although, justifiably, he is quoting his friend Iris Murdoch. He also makes a good point by saying that the doggerel reflects the preponderance in the county of small independent farmers rather than big landlords.

Conradi makes no bones about the fact that this is an outsiders book, the natives providing a romantic backdrop for those who retreat to the county in search of "inwardness". The book deals almost exclusively with writers and Conradi's Radnorshire is drawn rather large - George Herbert, Henry Vaughan and Thomas Traherne are the subjects of one chapter for example. Indeed Marcher Pastoral might have been a more accurate subtitle for the book.

We should be grateful to Conradi for bringing Ffransis Payne to the attention of a wider audience and the book does not ignore some of the great Welsh language poetry composed for patrons living in the county. I do wish the translation of Elen Gethin as Elen the Terrible could somehow be abolished, it means olive or swarthy skinned. Does anyone really think that bards like Lewis Glyn Cothi and Llawdden would have called Elen terrible to her and her family's face? One thing the book does make apparent is the paucity of Radnorshire born writers, even Hilda Vaughan was born in Builth.

Did I learn anything new about Radnorshire? Yes, quite a lot, perhaps if I had paid more attention to the Mid-Wales Journal I would have known of R S Thomas's Presteigne connections for example. All in all there are enough "ideas" in the book to keep your blogger in topics for quite a while. Conradi shares Kilvert's ability to paint a picture in a few words and at just £9.99 this Seren publication should certainly find a place on any Radnorian's bookshelf.

Radnorshire Bardic Poems, 2

In the Fifteenth Century the Welsh speaking lands extended into districts which are now part of Herefordshire. In 1469 Tomas Fychan of Hergest was killed at the battle of Banbury. His wife, the formidable Elen Gethin of Llinwent, brought his body home and constructed the alabaster tomb which can still be seen in St Mary's Church, Kington. Lewis Glyn Cothi was no doubt well rewarded for composing this cywydd. Here is my translation.

No . 125 The Tomb of Tomas ap Rhosier Fychan

Without an hour to waste, greetings
To the land and houses of Herast,
Houses of obligation, stone towers
A land with eight homes that serve wine,
The close of Tomas ap Rhosier,
Houses like the tower of Alaher.

When gold-embossed Tomas was killed
At Banbury, in a golden crest,
That Sunday his lady
Brought him back to his glass-windowed home.
Did Rhodes make, or her eight ancient men
In eight halls, what Elen has wrought?
A grave that cost as much as a distant conquest,
It cost more than a castle wall.
There is writing above the grave,
Two names joined together:
The name of generous Tomas, who alas is no more,
And then the name of Elen.
Every part of the grave is dressed
With posts of white alabaster,
And on them, a man of ancient gold
And a fair woman under a covering of gold.
There are angels set one by one,
And has not each a multi-coloured shield?
It was good work, work for a day, two such days.
The relic chests are gilded,
A pregnant bed with colour in the heights,
A gleaming square like the church of St Curig,
Cut rock like a white crag,
A stone cradle from the choir of St David’s,
A white coffer that no-one stirs,
A pale citadel closing over a face,
Steel about a soldier,
A screen circle of a man’s bones,
A stone altar like a full moon,
With golden light falling on the floor,
The form of a wooden chest under bright candles,
The form of a stall closing over the brother of an earl.

How futile the grave under a thick wall,
Next to the tomb of Tomas.
By chance the grave of Tomas
Is a cairn of gold in an elegant fortress.
Another grave like that of Huail,
A Canterbury for the deer of Kington,
As powerful as Thomas the Martyr,
He was a miracle for his men.

Master Watcyn is a graceful root,
The maintainer of Tomas’s yeomen,
A wise eagle over his father’s men,
A lamb of God for our two lands.
The root and branch of Moreiddig,
Head of the eighth part of Elystan’s line,
The foundation stone of Bleddyn ap Maenyrch,
The seal of Einion Sais, beloved spear.
Holy God preserve Watcyn and his tenement,
This Monday, the Eagles of Llinwent,
Was there born within its shelter
Any better than the falcon of Hergest court?
If the sun goes down into the salt sea,
If the sunshine goes with it,
If a stag runs on the hill slope,
If the roebuck wanders the river cliff,
If falcons go in threes to the forest,
A long life will go to the lion of Herast.

Morgan Elfael

While Radnorshire could compare with any Welsh county in its readiness to provide patronage to the bardic order, it must be admitted that the county - or those cantons which went to make up the modern county - produced few literary figures itself. Indeed the correspondent of Y Gwyliedydd writing in 1827, at a time when the Welsh language had retreated 20 miles in a generation, blamed this process of anglicization on the lack of local poets and literary figures.

It would be pleasant if evidence came to light showing that bards such as Bedo Brwynllys for example, actually derived their names from Radnorshire placenames, in his case Brwynllys in Llanddewi Ystradenni parish, rather than the generally accepted Breconshire Bronllys; but as it is, even a poet as associated with the county as Hywel ap Syr Mathew actually came from Llanfair Waterdine in Shropshire.

One bard that Radnorshire can certainly claim is Morgan Elfael, who in all probability came from Diserth and whose death is recorded in the Presteigne parish register in 1563. Many years ago I actually looked up the entry in the register at the Hereford Record Office, a tangible link - like the tomb of Elen Gethin and Tomas ap Rhosier in Kington church - with a past that in many ways seems almost mythical. Anyway Morgan was a fairly prolific bard with some 60 surviving poems hidden away in manuscript.

Ffrancis Payne published a long extract from one poem in Crwydro Sir Faesyfed but I've seen nothing else in print. The poem relates the adventures of a group of friends travelling to Arwystl, on the way they encounter a troll like creature. Here's my attempt at translating a few lines:

Philip fell in a heap,
Arse over head beneath the table,
Once more he got up, like a stupid dog
To grab hold a second time.
Dear God and his candles!
What a racket this angry wrestling match made!
Four hours they were fighting there,
Clumsily, arse over tip.
I've seen many, but he was the ugliest,
The dirty creature beneath Bedo.
There in plain view they saw
Bedo castrate the thing;
And throw him, a fat package,
Into the blazing fire on his bare backside.

It's interesting that Morgan uses South Wales dialect in this extract, cwnnu instead of codi and tawlu instead of taflu.
.

Ffransis Payne

"Et nous, dont le nom connu des goélands et des cormorans, Fut banni de tous les langages humains, De toutes les bibliothèques, de toutes les cartes terrestres"

Having been educated in 1960s Radnorshire it was an easy thing to relate to the words of the Breton singer Alan Stivell. Our history, too, was untold, buried in dusty manuscripts, replaced by stories that had no place for our heroes, our writers, our songs. My first real inkling of all this came in 1968 in the sedate surroundings of the Ty John Penry bookshop in Swansea's St Helen's Road. Here I came across two recently published volumes by Ffransis G. Payne, Crwydro Sir Faesyfed.

Supposedly part of a travelogue series covering the thirteen Welsh counties, the two Radnorshire volumes contained much more, the broad outlines of a suppressed and forgotten history. Two books written about, rather than for, the people of Radnorshire, folk who were, in Payne's words, unaware that the fragrant names of their parishes and farms sparkled like gems in works that would be an adornment for any literature. Struggling to understand these books with the help of a Spurrell's dictionary, I soon became aware of another truth about Wales in the Sixties. Payne's elegant prose was quite beyond many of my Welsh-speaking friends, the education system had left them practically illiterate in their mother tongue. Clearly the liberation struggles of 1968 needed to be fought far closer to home than many imagined.

Ffransis Payne was born in Kington, Herefordshire in 1901 and it was perhaps the tomb of Elen Gethin and Tomas ap Rhosier Fychan in the local parish church, where he was a choirboy, that awakened his interest in the history of Radnorshire and the border lands. In the 1920s Payne got on his bike and cycled west, working as a farm labourer in order to learn the Welsh language. In 1936 he found a post as an assistant keeper at the National Museum of Wales, coming to wider notice in 1943 when a collection of his essays was hailed as a modern classic of Welsh prose. Despite his lack of academic qualifications, Payne's meticulous scholarship saw him appointed as deputy curator of the Welsh Folk Museum in 1948. In later life Payne did infact study for a degree and had the amusing experience of having to answer a question on one of his own essays in his final examination. In 1969 Payne retired from the Folk Museum and moved back to Radnorshire, he died in 1992.

They were not followed by their betters was Payne's judgement on the old uchelwr class who sustained the civilised society in Radnorshire deep into the Sixteenth Century. As a scholar of Radnorshire and her history a similar judgement can surely be passed on Payne.

A44

On this beautiful summer's day let's take a trip from the Herefordshire border town of Kington to Cardigan Bay.  Despite being the birthplace of one Radnorshire icon (Ffransis Payne) and the resting place of another (Elen Gethin) the 2011 Census shows Kington to be a thoroughly English place, 92% of the town claiming no Welsh identity of any kind.

No worries, we're soon over the border and crossing two Welsh community council areas, Old and New Radnor.  Back in Victorian times there were plans to erect a giant statue of the Duke of Wellington here, it would have dominated the Vale of Radnor.  Perhaps it should have gone ahead since both communities recorded 71% No Welsh identity in 2011.  The locals may have opted for a Welsh-only identity, but there were precious few of them around to bother the enumerators.

Cross Radnor Forest and, in the community council area of Penybont, Welsh identifiers are in the majority .... well just, with 49% opting for a non-Welsh identity.  The same is true (49% non-Welsh) in Llanbadarn Fawr - casual visitors will know it as Crossgates, the Post Office having made up the name to avoid confusion with a place further along our route.

We pass through Nantmel (52% non-Welsh) to arrive in the bwgi-wonderland of Rhaeadr Gwy.  As late as the 1960s the children of Rebecca were said to have dangled an over-zealous police officer from the Wye bridge until he promised to turn a blind eye to their activities. It's a much more law-abiding place today, with 45% claiming no affinity with such wild Welshness.

Respectible folk will be glad to leave Radnorshire and its "half things" behind as we enter the Montgomeryshire community of Llangurig (42% non-Welsh) with the promise of Ceredigion and a glimpse of the sea to come. Geraint Howells used to boast that his old cynefin - it's now officially called Blaen Rheidol - was a place where Cardis lived even though the crows starved.  The non-Welsh seem to be doing fairly well too - 51% no-Welsh identity.

We come to Melindwr - I'm the casual visitor now and would recognize it as Capel Bangor - and, saints be praised, the non-Welsh element is a miniscule 39%.  Dafydd ap Gwilym's Llanbadarn Fawr soon jolts us back to reality (58% non-Welsh).  Heavens, it's even less Welsh than Crossgates!  And so we arrive in cosmopolitan Aberystwyth, with a 55% Non-Welsh population. Its hardly surprising that I rarely hear Cymraeg on the streets or in the shops during my occasional visits to the town.

Does any of this matter?  You tell me.

Frontier Post

Although the road from Walton to Presteigne flits to and fro across the border, it's easy enough to tell where you are; the Herefordshire sections being in such a worse state of repair than those of Radnorshire.  Arriving in Presteigne it's reassuring to see Owain Glyndwr's standard flying in the High Street. Some might argue that the reality was that Owain's forces sacked the town, but that would be to forget Edmund Mortimer's call for the Welshmen of Presteigne to give their allegiance to Glyndwr.  Clearly some still do.

On a recent visit I took the opportunity to purchase Mr. Parker's excellent history of the town, it's a book I read when it first came out in 1997 but this was a fairly recently updated edition.

If I have a criticism of this deservedly much praised volume. it's that only about 10% of  the book concerns the medieval town.  Perhaps local historians could make more of Welsh sources.  The public chastisement of the bard Ieuan Dyfi, he was symbolically whipped eight times around Presteigne church in 1501 after admitting adultery with Anni Goch - the basis for the bardic dispute between Ieuan and the female poet Gwerful Mechain.  Then there are the poems by Lewis Glyn Cothi to the lord of Stapleton, Dafydd Goch.  He came from the Fron, near Crossgates.  Or what about Morgan Elfael, the bard from Diserth who lived in Presteigne for at least twenty years and whose burial is recorded in the parish register, now found in Hereford Record Office - As an aside I find it interesting that Morgan was known by his bardic name in the public records (here for example in the lay subsidy for Presteigne, nine lines from the top).  And of course Elen Gethin lived out her days in Nash.

Moving on to a more general point, historians seem to get a bit sniffy when they use Welsh genealogical and historical sources.  They'll qualify a source by mentioning their unreliability or the bard's proneness to exaggeration.  As far as I can see these Welsh sources are no less reliable than the English records.  Are English lawyers and landowners and churchmen always reliable?  I'd make a guess that they were just as much a parcel of rogues as our present day establishments.

Tempus Fugit

You're a journalist, you've got to come up with some copy, so you produce a list. You know, the 3 most intelligent drummers or the 101 greatest outside halves born in Cefneithin, that sort of thing. Television stations also get in on the act fairly regularly and now historian John Davies enters the fray with a new book, or I guess an English translation Wales: The 100 Places To See Before You Die.

Davies lists just three Radnorian places worthy of a visit before you snuff it, Llananno Church, The Pales and Presteigne. Um, that should take care of an afternoon, with plenty of time to plan a visit to such nearby attractions as Talgarth and Newtown. Indeed although Mr D's book will no doubt be fairly readable, his list does seem a tad non-specific: the outskirts of Newport, the Rhondda townscape, the Lower Swansea valley, Kenfig and the surrounding area.

Anyway it's not a volume I'll be over eager to find in my Christmas stocking, unlike this, but what about some of the Radnorshire attractions Mr Davies missed:

The Elan Valley and especially the pipeline. How many people realise that the water runs the 73 miles to Brum by the force of gravity alone. There's green for you. What about the Showground in Llanelwedd or the increasingly less genteel decay of Victorian Llandrindod Wells. I'd include the tomb of Tomas ap Rhosier and Elen Gethin in Kington parish church. OK I know that's Herefordshire, but why take any notice of a border drawn up by some ill-informed bureaucrat 470 odd years ago.

Any more suggestions for Radnorian places for inclusion on the list?

Book of the Month

After Lewis Glyn Cothi the bard Llawdden was perhaps the most prolific of the Fifteenth Century poets writing to patrons in and around Radnorshire. At least half the poems in this newly published book in the University of Wales's Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies' series Beirdd yr Uchelwyr have a Radnorshire interest. As usual the book is full of genealogical and historical interest for students of local history with copious notes on every poem.

It seems that Llawdden retired to farm in the parish of Cefnllys and what was to become Radnorshire was certainly his main area of bardic activity. Of particular interest are the five poems to the family of Phylib ap Rhys of Cenarth, St Harmon, poems to patrons at Croescynon and Garddfaelog in Llanbister, a fine obituary to Elen Gethin of Hergest and poems to patrons in what is now Herefordshire

Radnorshire Bardic Poems, 15

This Wedding Ode was composed for the marriage of Robert Whitney of the tiny Marcher lordship of Whitney, now just across the English border in Herefordshire, and Elis, the daughter of Tomas Fychan and Elen Gethin of Hergest, Kington. The neithior, wedding feast held before the marriage was an important element in the bardic tradition, for it was here that the apprentice bard graduated. This long and perhaps, for the casual reader, tedious awdl is full of historical interest.

123. Wedding Ode to Robert Whitney and Elis vz Tomas Fychan

Oh God, who on the Wye bank has wit?
Master Robert of Whitney,
Staunch eagles from the houses of the cross,
From the line of Trussell, with no lesser blood.

The line of marriage causes no more worry,
The daughter of Tomas ap Rhosier,
Mistress Elis, is chosen,
It is like choosing a sun from a company of stars.

Every courser of their court is a star
Food and drink fill the table,
I feel a chill when I see his ward,
Strange to be without Robert’s tower.

In his father’s tower, Robert
Is surrounded by money, more than in Newgate,
By stallions and spearmen in the embrace of battle,
More numerous than parishes, in their plate armour.

In her curtained tower, Mistress Elis
Has money and treasure, jewels and dresses;
On Monday she’ll wear clothes of damask silk,
Matching chamlet and velvet,
With a train of gold over her head and cheek,
She’ll wear garlands and scarlet,
And pray to Jesus for a fruitful life,
Nine lives she’ll bring to estate.

Generous Master Robert calls Elfael his country,
A master who shares his wealth freely with me.
Here he is a fair and equitable magistrate,
He sits on many councils of escheat,
No treachery may be proved against him,
None ever will be, no case would stand,
While there is a boat or a ship anchored at sea,
While the sky has colour, while the moon exists.

In the lord’s court everyone has their place,
Henchmen and yeomen are not refused,
Golden coursers whinnying,
Trumpets, bowmen, stags bleating,
The greyhounds of Whitney, a hundred hunting dogs,
A host of huntsmen in uniform,
The Epiphany kitchen busy with cooks, butler, cellar men, chattering carpenters,
And outside the court laughing peasants,
And outside the tower a minstrel without an invitation;
And from the bride, progeny and a supreme lineage,
And from the groom issue and lineage and seed.

Amen! Seed and lineage as she would desire
From the Lord of Whitney;
In their court a place of Alsace wine,
In their white towers and their houses.

The contracted court of my lady,
The courts of my lord like sunshine,
Her saintly tower is a sanctuary.

The tower of Master Robert, an ash,
A better tower than the White Tower,
A brilliant-white square storybook tower.

What house is that in the shape of five dice
Yonder, like Sandwich?
Is it not Elis’s court upon a headland?

A citadel on the Wye bank,
With her it is greater than
The tower of Joshua, than Caesar’s tower.

Set on a beach it is no less,
This Nudd’s house in fair Whitney,
Than the houses of charity that Lazarus built.

These two are no less,
With their wine for me,
Than the flowers of the south through all the earth.

More free the gifts
From his hand, as hers,
Than the flow of a river, to a guileless scholar.

Fair the gifting
Of gold given to Mary,
Like snow for Jesus from Balthasar.

From their mine of gold and their mead,
From their goods in like manner,
From their feats, the two friends would not refuse me.

The rents of their lands
I’d have and gowns,
Various vegetables, food on a spit.

A variety of sea food,
The wealth of vale and mountain,
More spirits, various birds.

An Arthur will not refuse me,
As tall as an ash tree,
And she, too, is Gwenhwyfar.

Ugh! To the Saxon up
From their stronghold which he hates,
A cold life to him who loves not the Welshman.

Deiniol, St Denis,
Cedwyn has protected them,
Dewi, Non, Elis, Dwynwen, Ilar.

To them the life of Moses,
As long as Old Noah,
Two lives of two trees, an oak tree and an oak wood.

A start in good health
Mary, grant them,
Long their conquest and a distant parting.

Let their parting be distant, let their lifetime
Be longer than the oldest unto Monmouth,
To scatter gold upon the Arrow,
To fill the banks of the Wye with wine!